Why Christopher Hitchens matters to me

When a bishop threatened a sitting President of excommunication, that can really piss people off. It didn’t take long for me to express my anger, as shown here in my Facebook post last September 30, 2010. The original Inquirer news has long been deleted for reasons I do not know. So incensed I was at the news that I was ready to exit the Catholic  Church as well. What I didn’t realized back then that this was the beginning of my journey toward nonbelief. This moment that set off my curiosity towards freethinking and atheism and eventually my awakening towards a life of humanism and secularism.

And my constant companion was Christopher Hitchens. His numerous Youtube videos of him debating theists on why religions like Islam, Christianity and Judaism are contributing to the persecution of women and stifling of free speech; the many CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and CSPAN interviews of him enlightening us to the evils of fundamentalism and the need to oppose absolutism; his BBC documentary explaining why Mother Teresa is a complete fanatic, fundamentalist and a fraud; his best-selling books including god is not Great explaining why religion poisons everything in our lives.

His arguments convinced me right away. Unlike dogma, his ideas let you think for yourself. For a 38 year old Filipino Catholic and former seminarian of eight years, that was a breath of fresh air, especially if I was told and taught for many years that God can be known through reason, faith seeking understading, which is a false premise since faith is a process of non-thinking, accepting something by abandoning reason. So there I was, soaking my mind in atheistic literature that was completely new to me. And I loved it!

The Hitch stood for free speech, empowerment of women, against dictatorship celestial or otherwise, defended homosexuality, and pleaded for us to use criticial thinking and not surrender our minds against the onslaught of mind-numbing conformity and impositions of religions.
               

“Faith is the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other animals. It's our need to believe and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. ... Out of all the virtues, all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated” – Christopher Hitchens

So I learned to be brave, to question everything, and to stand for the same virtues that Hitchens stood for. Hitchens of course hated the idea of emulating him and putting him in the pedestal; but I owe him, his contribution to humanity for unshackling my mind from the prison of religion and faith. Christopher Hitchens ideas are universal and accepted by fair minded individuals around the world. When Hitchens wrote why Orwell matters, he got his analysis right. In many ways, he educated us to always pay attention to society's leanings towards absolute rule and constant surveillance. With Hitchens, a torch has been passed, now we need to be aware, not just of fascist and totalitarian tendencies, but of the uncritical surrender of the mind, against the evils of religion. That is why Christopher Hitchens matters to me.

What is your priority: faith or people

If Cardinal Tagle’s Oratio Imperata for Deliverance from Calamities is to be believed, collective prayer can stop a typhoon. Consider the below lines:

We pray to you for protection from calamities,

from the floods and raging waters brought by storms,

from howling winds that destroy our homes,

from the loosening of earth that brings landslides.

Calm the storm and keep us all safe and far from harm

these perilous days and always.

Who would have thought that talking to an imaginary being in droves can change the course and outcome of a typhoon. Not only is this impossible, it is also inconsistent. If we assume an omniscient God, a Being who knows everything that is to happen every minute and every second, and an omnipotent God, a Being that is so powerful that he can stop all calamities just by thinking it, the need for prayer dissipates. Prayer goes against the will of God. Prayer is telling God what to do. With prayer, you assume that you know better than God, pretend to know the mind of God. What if God wills that Filipinos suffer through these yearly typhoons? Who are we to deny this God?

After the devastation of Typhoon Yolanda; a friend, Ruben Mendoza, an associate professor at Ateneo de Manila University wrote a piece in The New York Times last November 18, 2013 titled See God in the Response, Not the Disaster. Although he didn’t mention if prayer could stop a typhoon, he offered something simpler: in case a typhoon strikes, don’t despair, just look around you and see God.  A thing I learned about this essay: confirmation bias, as Ruben tried to interpret human suffering as proof of God.  So God sent a killer typhoon because he could not think of a better way to show proof of himself.

If the destruction brought about by typhoons can turn people to God, then Filipinos should welcome typhoons every year with open arms, not pray them away to go somewhere else, say Japan. Ok, I should not make fun of calamities. Natural calamities really do bring enormous and cruel suffering and tears to people. But to tell people that they can find God in their suffering, I think, is more cruel and insensitive. It’s one thing to sympathize with suffering Filipinos and another to suggest they can find God in disasters. It demeans humanity by substituting human solidarity, hope and charity, which is a real thing, with a vain attempt to demonstrate God, who abandoned them in the first place.

Religious people are free to take comfort in God when they suffer of course, yet even if we are able to justify the existence of God through natural calamities, why would you excuse this same God as the source? A God who is incapable of evil? So, don’t blame God, but blame minorities? Yes, that’s a great idea! A Muslim cleric Sheik Fawzan Al-Fawzan blamed gays for the Boxing Day Tsunami in Indonesia. And in the Philippines, two bishops in fact, Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles (famous for the Team Patay - Team Buhay slogan) blamed the RH Law for the destruction of Typhoon Yolanda; and Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo said,

“I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or it’s because the Lord is trying to tell us that if you talk about that [the then RH bill] seriously it’s like there’s a message saying that many difficulties happen to us… especially since we [the Catholic Church] don’t want the bill deliberated hurriedly and secretly so that it is passed.”

Religion has distorted our view of natural calamities. I remember Iglesia Ni Cristo officials refused to help Yolanda victims because they were not members of their church. A humanist and atheist group, PATAS, was turned away from a medical mission because a barangay official thought a bunch of non-believers would corrupt the faith of the people.

When religion trumps human well-being and welfare, it is time to re-think your priorities: faith or people. 

Religion in marriage intrusive, self-indulgent

Ask yourself the same question: “Would you change your religious beliefs to marry the person you love? Why or why not?”

Personally, this question is a non-issue. Inserting religion into marriage or any social functions, like medical practice or education, for example, is intrusive and self-indulgent. Love, to achieve its ultimate goal, must be unconditional. But if someone feels he/she can insert or force his/her religion into marriage, he/she needs to re-evaluate his or her purview about what constitutes well-being in a marital relationship and how it flourishes.

Miss Angola, in my view, got away with an easy answer. There is nothing more ubiquitous than the issue of physical and racial differences. I will not fault Shamcey for her answer. Shamcey’s question is definitely an issue that many can agree to disagree on. Shamcey grew up in a culture and country that considers being religious as a sort of a birthright. Where religion takes precedence and valued over everything else and takes hold on politics, education and government.

Despite Shamcey’s higher education, mental and intellectual acuity, her answer failed to do her justice. It’s an example of how perfectly intelligent and normal people get to say nonsensical answers because of religion. Imagine what an ordinary Arab woman would feel and think.

Shamcey’s answer further reinforces the religious injunction and limitations that women in her country are already experiencing. Or a western woman would be shocked to hear Shamcey’s answer as contrary to her democratic beliefs of gender and religious equality. As a Miss Universe aspirant, she also represents these women from other nations, not just the Philippines.

Shamcey only has 30 seconds to answer and gave the best answer she could come up with. Her answer is OK for Filipinos but apparently not enough for the rest of the world, or the judges

Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/12347/religion-in-marriage-intrusive-self-indulgent#ixzz3ASdmqLGt